15
Return to Ocmulgee Church  


C
harles' return to the Ocmulgee Church in 1829 was six years and nine months after his departure in 1822.  It should not be assumed he moved his family out of the community and relocated them in Marion while he was at Siloam Church.  There is evidence to indicate he did not move but commuted to his preaching obligations in Marion and elsewhere from his farm along the Oakmulgee.  

During this period, Charles continued to own the land he settled in 1819 near the church, and he did not own any Marion land or property.  His family engaged in activities that indicate they were living in the Oakmul-gee community.  The men who married during the decade of the 1820's all married girls from families in the settlement.  William Calloway, a minister who lived in the area, performed Mary and Silas Crow's mar-riages.   Charles also married a woman from an Oakmulgee family in 1827, and Noah Haggard conducted the ceremony.  

In 1823, Charles asked the Ocmulgee Church to settle a dispute between himself and James Woods of the Bogue Chitto Church.  The nature of this dispute is unknown, but the church sent Reddick Simms, church clerk, James Griffin and Matthias Dennis to deal with the difficulty.  In January and August 1827, Charles preached at Ocmulgee.  In April 1828 one of the Crow boys " . . . gave himself to the Watch Care of the church, she therefore receives him with Christian affection and wish him to enjoy all of the privileges of the Church . . . "  This son is not identified, but was probably Jesse Crow, the youngest son.  On June 20, 1828, Sarah McCraw, who married Charles sixteen months earlier, joined Ocmulgee Church seven months before Charles.  The inference here is that the children, or at least one of them, and the wife were living in the settle-ment. 

Charles did not return to Ocmulgee Church as pastor.  Noah Haggard had that job.  Crow continued to supply the pulpit at Siloam through 1830 when he resigned and was succeed by William Calloway.  It is obvi-ous, however, that Charles' interest in 1829 was at Ocmulgee Church and in the community.  Nearing sixty years of age, the rigors of primitive travel probably exhausted his strength, and he sought a more favorable field of service and the comfort of his plantation.  At Ocmulgee Church, he could have both.  

During the years Charles ministered at Siloam, Pastor Noah Haggard, who also ministered at Providence Church for a period beginning in 1824, led the Ocmulgee Church.  In Charles' absence, the church added about eighty new members, including eighteen slaves, twenty-three members were dismissed and five were excluded, giving a net of about fifty-two members gained.  The lack of response to the church's ministry was a matter of concern for the church, so they set aside the fourth of May, 1827 " . . . as a day of fasting and prayer to Almighty God that his people might have more of his Spirit kindled in their hearts . . . "  

The church struggled with a number of problems including mission sup-port, members abuse of alcohol, disputes among members, need for a new meeting house, and member discipline.  But it was a period when the church moved forward gaining in membership, erecting a new meeting house, maintaining a mission in the home of Henry Haynes for a year, supporting the Cahaba Baptist Association and Alabama Convention, and nurturing young ministers who rose out of the congregation.  

At first, the church refused to become involved with the Mission Board in support of domestic missions but was only cool on the subject in 1823.  The church soon joined the mission support churches in the Cahaba As-sociation under the influence of Charles Crow.  

Intoxicants troubled prominent members of the church such as Ephriam Butler, James Griffin and William Greer.  Consumption of alcohol was not a cause of church discipline, and abstinence was not an objective.  However, the church condemned drinking to excess or intoxication.  Selling alcohol was not an offense, but " . . . retailing spirits on the Sab-bath . . . was considered unGodly conduct."  The temperance movement would come later, and Carry Nation, the temperance agitator, was not born until 1846.  The church recognized the evil of alcohol, but the mes-sage of the Bible was temperance, not abstinence, and the church did not forbid consumption entirely. 

At the July 1825 church conference " . . . the church agreed to build a new meeting house  . . . "  It is uncertain if there was an "old" meeting house.  The only prior reference to a meeting house was five years ear-lier in 1820 when the men of the church met to " . . . fix on the site of a meeting house . . . "  Whatever the case, the congregation set about building a meeting house in 1825.  The house was rectangular shaped with adjacent walls of unequal length measuring thirty-six by thirty feet, yielding 1,080 square feet.  The congregation constructed the walls of logs hewn to a flat surface on two sides and notched together at each corner.  The cracks were filled with mortar of clay.  The ground was the floor.  The roof construction was contracted out and was doubtlessly made of hand rived boards.  

The meeting house was built on land belonging to William Greer.  The house had six windows and fourteen pews.  The rafters were held to-gether with eighty spikes made by William Burges, a member of the church.  The roof contractor charged $40.00 to do the job and the church paid $5.50 for fifty-five pounds of nails making the total cost of the new meeting house $45.50.  The structure was finished in December 1825, six months after deciding to build it.  The log church would remain in use for about nine years when it would be replaced by a frame structure.

During the decade, several guest preachers, other than Charles Crow, preached at Ocmulgee including William West, William Morely, Wil-liam Norris, William Calloway, and John Dennis.  In 1827, the congrega-tion established a fund for traveling preachers from which the clerk could pay two dollars to ministers who merited it.  Young ministers be-gan to rise out of the congregation.  John Dennis was the principal con-gregational preacher of the period although some members thought him not "industrious" enough.  Nevertheless, the church gave him permission to preach "in neighboring churches" and gave him a license to preach in September 1827.  

Two other church members made professions of faith during this time who were destined for prominence as Alabama ministers.  George Everett was converted on April 21, 1827 and Abner Gary McCraw on May 25, 1828.  Both would be nurtured by the church and Charles Crow emerging to provide service and leadership for their Lord in later years.  A fourth case ended differently.  Cyrus, a "servant" belonging to Robert English, was silenced when it was discovered he was preaching to other slaves.  Cyrus had been a member of the church since August 1820, but the ministry at the time was reserved for whites.  Cyrus would leave the church in January 1829, the month and year Charles Crow returned to Ocmulgee Church.  

It is quite unlikely Charles found any of this a surprise when he rejoined the church.  In the small, tight knit settlement where everyone's business was community business, it would have been hard for him to remain uninformed.  He moved easily back into the congregation as a member, but his prominence as a preacher was sure to land him a leadership role at Ocmulgee.